Saturday, April 4, 2009

Motivations....

Recently, a fellow instructor and I were discussing The president, Congress, the massive debt act of 2009, and other weighty subjects. I told him "By their actions shall ye know them".

I'll explain.........

Put in terms we school instructors understand, it's all about goals and motivations. We as teachers have our goals.... do the best we can to educate our students and give them a fighting chance in the world. Administration has their goal, which is to keep every single warm body in a chair and bring the money into the school, no matter how disruptive a student becomes to the others. Looked at in these terms, both our actions and the administrations make perfect sense. Taken in light of unifying 'mission statements' and such, suddenly common sense is out to lunch. The words mean little, what we do says everything.

"By their actions shall ye know them".

Ok, apply that to President Obama and Congress. Apply that concept to the massive debt acts of 2008 and 2009. Look at it in light of the 400% increased national deficit the new budget just passing through Congress means. What motivates Congress and the President?

Government creates nothing. It only has the power to tax, subsidize, and destroy. Not to create. Government can take from one and give to another, and it can tear apart people and works. One thing it can never do is create wealth. Wealth defined as the productivity of working people and a working economy. Surely, government can print money, but that is not wealth. Printing cash, or creating it in slippery ones and zero's, is inflationary. It only devalues the money held within the real economy, making everyones holdings of less value. In other words.... printing money steals value from the cash already in the system, and is just another form of tax. It moves wealth from those who earned it to those who 'printed it'. If a private party does it, the government calls it 'forgery' and fights it like the dickens because it debases and devalues our currency, stealing from the 'The People'. We used these exact tactics against our enemies during WWII, as they used them against us. Printing billions of forged notes (not backed by any value) to attack their economies.

Now.... Congress and the President are using that tactic against us, and the American economy. Printing, creating, trillions of 'new' dollars out of thin air (but under their control). Unable to steal the money from your pocket fast enough, they have found a way to steal the value of your money, moving it from your pocket to theirs. Not only yours, but via deficit spending they are taking the labor of your children and grand children as well.

Tax, or inflation... Raising taxes always attacks the economy and costs jobs. Always and every single time. Lowering taxes stimulates the economy and allows job creation. Always and every single time. When the government sticks their hand in our pocket it weakens us as a nation. When they reduce leaching we get stronger.

Some government is good, and most government workers perform valuable jobs, earning their pay and our thanks. Too much government.... that's an infection which weakens the nation, drawing like a parasite from the energy we need to survive and thrive. The folks who guard our shores and inspect our food..... we need them. The professionals who hunt down criminals, and keep air travel safer, and brave storms to save mariners... we need those people. The professional politicians who feed off the labor of working people... like vultures on a still breathing creature of the field... they are killing us as a nation.

The two to three trillion dollars in extra spending last year and this? It's a huge grab at the wealth of working people. It has to be paid for, and there are only two ways to do it since government can't actually create wealth. They have to raise taxes, which steals wealth from working people, or they have to print money, which steals wealth from working people.

Let me put this opinion as simple as I can. If you work for a living, and get paid for your labor (mental or physical), then you create all the wealth our government is spending. The citizens of this nation who work for a living are creating wealth, and everyone else lives off their backs. It makes no difference if you are paid $8 an hour to push a broom, or $2 million a year to make decisions for a living..... working people create wealth. Government spends wealth... it's what they exist to do.

One party... the self styled champion of those who don't work.. who live off other's labor.... has managed to get itself voted into total power over this nation. The fox has become owner of the hen house keys, and the fox is insane with hunger, as are his brethren now crawling out of the underbrush.

No matter how it's done, the so called stimulus package was the hugest money grab and wealth redistribution since the formation of the Soviet Socialist Union. Now, the new budget passing through Congress seeks to rival the 'stimulus' pork bill with wild spending and vote buying. The President plans to quadruple our national debt while he's in office. The numbers are staggering... tens of trillions of dollars. Servicing that debt will be nearly impossible for us, our children, and their children. Generations will work their lives away just to pay the interest on money they never had nor spent. It's only possible name is slavery........

Are the people in congress really too stupid to understand this? Is the President too stupid to understand this? No.... I doubt it. I think it comes back to the idea of motivations and actions. They know exactly what effect their actions will have on the economy and on us, and it fits within their motivations. It's acceptable to their goals.

Give that some thought, if you care to. Think about what goals and motivations it would take to make destroying our economy acceptable, or even desired.

1 comment:

Very good writeup. A large portion of this country does not know basic economics.

When I was in high school, we had two required classs---government and basic economics. In those classes, we were taught both state and US constitutions AND how government and free enterprise worked; the relationship of government, taxes and services. We created paper companies, sold products, made budgets, met payrolls, were assessed and paid taxes, calculated income and profit.

That isn't taught anymore. It was cut to provide sex education and pay for community service programs.

Ayn Rand

"Love is the expression of one's values, the greatest reward you can earn for the moral qualities you have achieved in your character and person, the emotional price paid by one man for the joy he receives from the virtues of another."

As for me.... what love I have left will stay in it's cage, not to be released again. There is only pain on that path.

'Atlas Shrugged', 1957

"Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with." ('Atlas Shrugged' 1957)

Robert Heinlein

"Do not confuse "duty" with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different. Duty is a debt you owe to yourself to fulfill obligations you have assumed voluntarily. Paying that debt can entail anything from years of patient work to instant willingness to die. Difficult it may be, but the reward is self-respect.But there is no reward at all for doing what other people expect of you, and to do so is not merely difficult, but impossible. It is easier to deal with a footpad than it is with the leech who wants "just a few minutes of your time, please — this won't take long." Time is your total capital, and the minutes of your life are painfully few. If you allow yourself to fall into the vice of agreeing to such requests, they quickly snowball to the point where these parasites will use up 100 percent of your time — and squawk for more!So learn to say No — and to be rude about it when necessary.Otherwise you will not have time to carry out your duty, or to do your own work, and certainly no time for love and happiness. The termites will nibble away your life and leave none of it for you.(This rule does not mean that you must not do a favor for a friend, or even a stranger. But let the choice be yours. Don't do it because it is "expected" of you.)"

Zoe:Sir, is there some information we might maybe be lacking as to why there's an entire Fed squad sitting on this train?

Mal: Doesn't concern us.

Zoe: It kinda concerns me

Zoe: You don't think that changes the situation a bit?

Mal: I surely do. Makes it more fun!

Zoe: Sir? I think you have a problem with your brain being missing.

Ronald Reagan said:

'Government is like a baby: An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.'